than once-some of them many times-but the general features have not been altered.

The changes have, almost uniformly, been only such as a rapid growth required-adaptations of minor details to changing circumstances. Respect for the popular will has constantly increased. The framers of many of the first Constitutions did not see the need of consulting the people before setting the machinery of government in motion. Such an omission has not occurred since the early years of the nineteeth century. A large part of the Union, State and local officers obtained their places at first by appointment of the Governor, Legislature or other authority; but the elective principle has steadily gained ground and few places are now filled otherwise than by election. Changes have more often been made in financial and educational systems, in the conduct of subordinate local affairs, and in principles of temporary policy, which have belonged, some have thought, more to the legislative than to the constitutional field, in which, Legislatures not having produced satisfactory results, Constitutional Conventions have tried their hand.

In many of these cases the evil has not seemed to be within the reach of Legislatures or Constitutions. Arising from the new and perplexing complications of an unexampled development, they could be best remedied only by the checks and balances indicated by time, by the laws of business and society operating freely, and which experiments, legislative or constitutional, have often hindered more than they have helped. The jostling of interests, public, corporate and private, where expansion was so rapid, was unavoidable, and time only could show the right remedy. The resort to constitutional regulation has not, therefore, always been successful and then required to be undone, and experiment and change have gone on within certain limits; but success and failures in one State have been so many lessons for all the rest, and constitutional progress has kept a generally even step throughout the Valley,

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and, to a somewhat less extent, in the rest of the country. Every Constitution contains provision for its own amendment, when it is believed necessary, so that the Constitutional system is elastic and renders resort to revolutionary measures unnecessary and extremely improbable, especially after the emphatic failure of the South in the civil war. The Constitutional History of the States of the Valley seems to have furnished a complete vindication of the wisdom of confiding government to the masses of the people. They have been generally cautious and temperate and common sense has proved itself in general, in this field, to be good

sense.

Partial, or one-sided examination, indeed, reveals much imperfection, and produces in some minds doubt as to the result. A judgment rendered from many party and other special standpoints frequently leads the prejudiced examiner to a serious questioning of the real excellence and success of our institutions. Their liberality often seems to have degenerated into license, public interests appear to be sacrificed to the ambition and greed of individuals, corporations, "rings,” and parties, and true patriotism appears to have vanished. There have never been wanting many prophets of evil who seemed to make a strong case and to prove that the utmost peril was imminent.

The mistake of such views lies in confining the observation to one class of facts, which seldom fail to be more or less exaggerated by the assumptions that make them cover, or nearly so, the whole field of action. More careful and impartial study invariably discovers that the real evil was, or is, less than represented, was but a temporary phase in the general current of free movement, or was an effort by short-sighted and unworthy men to reach an impossible result. These evils, when real, were merely temporary, and only required to be distinctly comprehended by the people at large to be neutralized, and, in the course of time, have disappeared. So uni

formly has this been the case in the whole past history of the Republic as to fairly justify the position that the prevailing character of moral, political, and business life is really healthy and sound, that the facts interpreted to the contrary are misconceived or temporary only, and that every evil existing at a given time will be replaced by its opposite sooner or later. In the cases where these evils are generally recognized and continue to exist, the whole past history of the country and of each section of it justifies the assumption that the AngloSaxon thoughtfulness and prudence underlying our whole life is only waiting to discover the effectual remedy, which it can not believe has yet been found. No fault should be found with this cautious habit, for it is the real source of strength and permanence in both English and American institutions. Experience and observation have more and more convinced this progressive race that radical reforms, hastily undertaken, usually defeat their aim by introducing more evils than they cure. The good sense of the people, therefore, leads them to wait till they can see their way clearly.

Reform moves slower in England than in the United States for the above reason. There is more to be unsettled, and more disturbance and confusion must ensue from the greater number of habits and relations that have grown up with time. The same may be remarked of the Eastern States as compared with the Valley. Re-adjustment is easier and less harmful in the newer States, and important changes have more generally —indeed, almost always-commenced in the West, and, if they proved successful there, they were adopted later by the East. This has been true, among other cases, of the removal of the restriction of suffrage to property owners, the extension of the elective principle in filling subordinate offices generally, and especially the State Judiciary. Constantly protested against as dangerous, they have spread from the Valley to the East and thence thrust an entering wedge into the institutions of Europe. The dangers prophesied have not been experienced;

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the "leveling" resulting has been "up" instead of "down;" and the standard of official fitness and purity has improved instead of deteriorating; while the wider field of action and responsibility assigned to the people has made them more thoughtful and more intelligent in their criticism.

On the whole the Constitutional history of the Valley has proved, more conclusively than had ever before been done, that freedom and responsibility tend to raise the masses of the people-even the lowest-out of the condition of a mobmoved by blind impulses when it is not ruled by as blind and abject a submission to authority-towards manliness and true statesmanship. It is they who have been the real authors of these Constitutions and of the order and social progress resulting under them. They have proved themselves true and enlightened statesmen. The moderation and wisdom of these free and comparatively untutored backwoodsmen afforded a striking and significant lesson which was the only justification of the experiment of enfranchising four millions of slaves at a stroke. That experiment might well seem dangerous. That it has not been ruinous is due to the good sense of the Southern whites and to the elevating influence of manhood suffrage. The fortunate history of the institutions of the Valley in general, and of that bold venture in particular, proves that man is never so dangerous as when deprived of manhood rights, and never so worthy and useful as when enjoying them in their fullest measure.

CHAPTER XV.

NATIONALITY OF EMIGRANTS ΤΟ THE VALLEY AND THEIR ORIGINAL CHARACTER.

The first immigration across the mountains to the Valley in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, beginning about 1750, was from Pennsylvania and Virginia-the earliest largely from the latter. But the course of the valleys, and especially of the Shenandoah, invited the restless in the more western settlements of eastern Pennsylvania to move southwestward, and people from that state mingled with Virginians and North Carolinians in the first settlements of Tennessee. Boone and many of his companions started from North Carolina to settle Kentucky. Tennessee was held to be included in the original charter of North Carolina and Kentucky in that of Virginia, and, as a more general rule, Tennessee received settlers from North Carolina, and Kentucky from Virginia.

The first settlers were, in considerable part, from the borders or frontiers of the colonies. These backwoodsmen were uncomfortable in their relations with the royal governments which, after 1760, replaced the charter and proprietary governments, and which, in various ways, encroached on popular rights, or resisted the demand of the people for greater freedom and a larger share of influence in public affairs. In North Carolina, especially, there had been great discontent for a long period. Many resolute and ambitious men, whose ideas of their rights and determination to maintain them, together with their eagerness to secure better locations than the Atlantic coast offered for private gain, studied the remote parts of the country and found their ideal met west of the mountains. For the most part they had little property in